


One day

by aqd



Series: tumblr prompts [5]
Category: D.Gray-man
Genre: Angst, Ficlet, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, One Shot, Short One Shot, Tumblr Prompt, canonverse, kid!alma, kid!kanda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-22
Updated: 2017-08-22
Packaged: 2018-12-18 15:43:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11877672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aqd/pseuds/aqd
Summary: A little ficlet for the tumblr prompt: "Tell me a secret."





	One day

**Author's Note:**

> This got angstier than planned. Oh well.  
> Feel free to send me a prompt and a pairing on tumblr! a-q-d.tumblr.com/tagged/prompts  
> Have a nice day.

It’s never really silent in the laboratory. Machines are humming, gadgets buzzing and the water-filled holes bubble softly. It’s also never really dark, everywhere are little lights, bathing the room in a soft bluish glow.  
  
Yuu knows that it’s not supposed to be like this. He read about it in one of Alma’s books. The night is supposed to be dark, shrouding the sleeping world. He sometimes wonders if he’s ever going to see that with his own eyes. Sun disappearing, hiding behind something called horizon, and everything getting swallowed by inkiness. He blinks into the gloaming surrounding them, as artificial as both of them.  
  
Alma on the bed next to him rustles silently with his linen and keeps moving and moving. Yuu sighs soundlessly and disappears under his blanket, trying to lock out the sounds. While Alma’s sleep is most of the times deep, his own is very light. He wakes up several times every night, especially since he’s sharing the room with somebody. And that makes him cranky, to the displeasure of Alma and the others, who have to suffer from his whims.  
  
Alma doesn’t stop moving and Yuu squeezes his eyes shut. He slowly but steady gets annoyed, but that doesn’t stop him from straining his ears. He hears Alma breathing, slowly and calmly, which is good. He cries often at night, especially after one of the experiments, but today he doesn’t seem to weep, to Yuu’s pleasure. He hates hearing him cry. He can’t fall asleep and his stomach starts to hurt, every time. But tonight Alma doesn’t cry and so Yuu emerges from his blanket and stares at him through the darkness.  
  
“Stop moving so much,” he growls and Alma freezes for a moment.  
  
“Sorry, I thought you were asleep,” he whispers, dim lights reflecting in his dark eyes.  
  
“But I’m not,” Yuu replies less silently and scowls at him. “Stop moving so much.”  
  
“But I can’t sleep,” he answers and Yuu sees him blinking. “Yuu, tell me a secret,” he suddenly says and Yuu hears the smile in his voice, but it’s not genuine. He knows it. It’s a try to keep the tears away, forced cheerfulness. Yuu dislikes it as much as crying, maybe even more. The smile is hollow, as hollow as the ones of Edgar and the others, whenever they look at them. It’s not a surprise. How can you genuinely smile at somebody you keep destroying again and again? Every day they die, get ripped apart, sink into the nothingness, just to get yanked out of it once more. Sometimes Yuu wishes they would just let them go.  
  
He frowns and blinks in an attempt to keep those thoughts away. It’s so hard to breathe and it gets even harder when he thinks about their situation. “What? No.” He turns away from him and swallows hardly.  
  
“But, Yuu,” he says long-drawn-out, voice a little to shrill. “Please. I’ll tell you one, too.”  
  
“I don’t want to hear your secret,” he answers and doesn’t turn around. “Shut up and let me sleep.” Yuu likes to sleep. It’s like the nothingness, but he doesn’t have to die to fall into it. Or at least he liked it, until the dreams started, disturbing the little peace he has.  
  
“No way,” Alma replies, a forced smile in his voice, and to Yuu’s dismay he hears him getting out of bed. His naked feet are nearly soundless on the cold tiles when he walks around him, until he’s in front of him, looking at him through the darkness.  
  
“Yuu,” he whines again and his warm breath touches Yuu’s face. “Please, please, please.”  
  
Yuu frowns and stares at him. “I don’t have any secrets,” he answers reluctantly, but Alma shakes his head.  
  
“Everybody has secrets,” he replies and examines him. “I tell you my secret and you tell me yours.”  
  
“I don’t want-” Yuu starts exasperatedly, but Alma doesn’t care and keeps talking.  
  
“The fairy taught me a song and I hum it always during the experiments, because it… it makes it easier,” he says, fake mirth slowly draining from his voice and Yuu starts to frown. He doesn’t like the face Alma is making. It makes his hands feeling cold and his shoulders heavy. The tears are coming, he knows it. He examines Alma’s antsy hands and suddenly he wonders how long Alma wanted to tell him this. Share his secret with him.  
  
“I… I think I heard you, a few days ago,” he answers after a moment, remembering the sound of shaky humming through the rushing of his own blood in his ears, and Alma sits down on the edge of his bed, his leg touching one of Yuu’s hands and feeling so warm in the coldness of the laboratory. “But I wasn’t sure,” he explains and sits up.  
  
“Do you wanna learn the song?” Alma asks, but Yuu shakes his head. “Why not?” He looks at him, eyes so dark and slowly tearing up. This is their way to deal with the horrors of the experiments. Alma hums and weeps, Yuu growls and shouts, rage, his oldest companion, always right behind him, protecting him.  
  
“Because it’s your secret and not mine,” he answers silently and doesn’t take his hand away, fingers slowly warming up. Alma doesn’t reply and so they sit next to each other in silence for a while, until Alma slightly moves.  
  
“You don’t have to tell me a secret, if you don’t want to,” he says kindly, voice nasally, and Yuu looks at him, thoughts still revolving around the experiments. He hates them so much. And the Innocence. He hates them all so much.  
  
It’s a weird situation, sitting next to each other in the darkness, talking about songs hummed by dying voices, and Yuu frowns softly.  
  
“I’m… I’m so tired,” he says after a while, voice silent, and Alma tilts his head.  
  
“Do you want me to leave you alone?” he asks and raises his brows, when Yuu shakes his head.  
  
“No,” he replies, frown deepening. “That’s my secret. I’m tired.” Alma looks at him, looking pale in the unnatural light, reflecting in his eyes. Yuu takes a deep breath. “Alma, I’m so tired,” he adds, voice getting thin, but only for a moment. Then he inhales deeply and blinks a few times. It’s weird. The words are out, after wandering through his head for weeks, every day and every night. During every experiment and every dream of withered flowers and soft whispers, gentle smiles just out of reach.  
  
Alma examines his hands and starts to fidget with Yuu’s blanket. “Yuu,” he asks slowly. “Do you want to go back to sleep?” His eyes wander through the door, which separates them from holes, dark and cold.  
  
Yuu doesn’t answer immediately. Does he want to? Cradled in cold water, surrounded by darkness and floating hair. Back into the nothingness, far away from experiments, cold gurneys, softly glowing symbols and laughter only he can hear.  
  
They lock eyes and Yuu nods slowly. “Yeah, sometimes I do.”  
  
Alma blinks and frowns, scrunching his nose, like he always does, when he’s going to cry. Yuu’s stomach starts to hurt. “Yuu,” he croaks, fingers steadily playing with his blanket, and Yuu stays silent and just listens. “I’m happy that you woke up.” He looks up and into Yuu’s eyes. “I’m happy that we’re together.”  
  
Yuu doesn’t cry. He never does, at least not in front of others. He just looks into Alma’s face and suddenly he hears his laughter, somewhere in the depths of his head. Both of them bleeding, hurting and laughing, the world suddenly a little brighter, breathing a little easier than before.  
  
“I know,” he answers and Alma smiles teary-eyed at him, this time genuine. Yuu examines him for a long moment.  
  
_One day I’m taking you with me and then we run away._  
  
 _One day._


End file.
